1) This week saw a terrorist mass murder in #Mali where 140 (mostly Muslim) #Fulani died, incl. children & pregnant women. It didn't get much space in the "Western" press compared to what happened in New Zealand. People will tell you diff. in coverage about "cultural proximity."

2) Few problems w/"proximity" argument in global news coverage. First, I'll bet most people in US/Europe didn't have faintest idea who was NZ PM before the Christchurch attacks. Or anything about NZ society. So, what's the "proximity"? This: they're (mostly) white, speak English.

3) Second problem with the "We don't cover Mali because it's not relevant to our audience" argument is that, while not covering Mali, same media companies don't cover poor non-white communities in their OWN countries. So, what's excuse there? Because it ain't lack of "relevance."

4) If one person is killed tomorrow in a terrorist attack in London by a Muslim, it would get more attention than 140 dead Muslims in #Mali received this week. More coverage than 50 people killed by US gun violence. Because it has nothing to do with "relevance" or "proximity."

5) Bottom line: intl news coverage isn't just about "proximity" and "relevance" it's very much about privilege. Privileging the privileged is not relegated to domestic news, but happens very often in international coverage. Imagine if dead in Mali were white, not poor herders.

6) #Mali matters because it illustrates how terrorism has disproportionately targeted poor Muslims. If that isn't "relevant" to Western news readers after 18 yrs of coverage of the "War on Terror" maybe news outlets should consider how what they emphasize impacts that perception.

7) The number of #Fulani dead in #Mali has now increased to 160. This from the BBC is one of the few detailed reports, with good background information. bbc.com/news/world-afr…

Related hashtags

1) How Context-Free Bullshit Spreads Online: The Case of The Veiled Woman on the Swedish Billboard.

So, the town of Gävle put this image up showing a local resident. The sign says "Welcome to Gävle" with the woman's name underneath. Because the woman is veiled, some were angry.

2) Of course, the implicit suggestion in many of the articles and tweets was that this woman was somehow selected to be the lone representative for the town of Gävle. That this was THE image to represent the city. Well...that's not quite the case.

3) The woman selected was one of 100 city residents, nominated by fellow residents, to represent the town to the outside world. Images of different people were all over town, and the billboard in question outside the town was digital, and showed a different person every week.

This pic, used by Swedish Sports Confederation, was removed after criticism that it supported the veiling of young girls, and that, to some, showing a veiled girl with a gun was linked to terrorism. Pic taken at sports day where kids were allowed to test different activities.

One of the people who criticized the picture, the Chair of the Swedish Swimming Federation, said that the picture, encouraged "honor oppression: genital mutilation, child marriage and honor violence." Today, she resigned because of those comments.

A comment from a former member of the committee responsible for Stockholm's Olympic bid: "If you ignore the little light-haired boy in the background, and he looked like I did when I was small, you would think that this is a recruiting ad for a militant organization." A disgrace.

Swedish locality of Staffanstorp - run by Moderate/Sweden Democrat coalition - decides that students in schools who do not eat pork won't be provided with a meat alternative as vegetarian is offered. This seen a sending message that Muslims not welcome, which local govt denies.

Moderate-SD authority in Staffanstorp now arguing that this is about "economics," but in their platform they clearly state that "cultural characteristics" (such as halal meat) should not be accommodated by local government. So, it's about laying down cultural markers.

There are similar cases in Europe where pork became a symbol of national identity. As I wrote in the @WashingtonPost last year, it's never really about the food (if pork were removed from school menus, and no-one was told, would parents even notice?). It's manufactured outrage.

Speeding up progress on reducing carbon emissions could prevent an estimated 150 million premature deaths over the next century. You can't call yourself "pro-life" if you don't care about stopping preventable deaths.

“You don’t know who is spreading [the #conspiracies] &amp; why, or who is picking them up &amp; why,” she says. “You can’t really confront the people who are responsible for these to their face or on social media, because you don’t know who is doitime.com/5356851/what-i…0bHJLHWG

The posts appear to reference a widespread, right-wing conspiracy theory known as #QAnon. Subscribers to the theory believe that President Trump is poised to stop a secret group of powerful people who operate child sex rings. buzzfeednews.com/article/jimdal…

After 70 years of imperial/neoliberal indoctrination the web of lies is so obviously absurde (9/11, Skripal, WH = ISIS, etc.), that it is dissoluting. The empathetic humanity connects, closes ranks and sends their eternal psychopathic rulers and their lackeys into nowhere land.

The "evil empire" is a lifelong three year old child. I certainly loved my children at that age too, however only because they created not only a surreal mess, but also made steady progress.

A great documentary about psychopathy and society:

The elite invented "democracy" to protect them from the empathetic people. The media are their means for misleading the people sedated by "democracy". This is definitely a bad thing since the people have become educated and the elite almost totally insane.

Heartbreaking moments when 3 Yezidis reunited with their family after more than 3 years of enslavement under Islamic state captivity.they were kidnapped from shingal,moved to Mosul and were sold in slavery markets in Syria #YazidiGenocide@DavidBCohen1@p_vanostaeyen@POTUS Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos

Video shows ISIS terrorists is boasting cuz he stole a Yezidi girl clothes while another one is raping her in the other room.When you focus on video,you can hear the Yezidi girl was crying asking for help.These ISIS terrorists are Sunnis from Mosul @TarekFatah#YazidiGenocide Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos

#YazidiGenocide is still ongoing, still more than 3154 Yezidi women & Children are in ISIS captivity. Iraqi government has done anything to rescue them and they don’t even help Yezidi survivors. @VP@realDonaldTrump Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos

3/n. HIV+ women in India have stopped their treatment as hospitals demand the biometric Aadhaar. The women fear loss of anonymity & social stigma on them and their families. newindianexpress.com/states/karnata…